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impossibility to control vs. impossibility of control



 
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ESL Forums | English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
Idiom 'go off the deep end' | meaning of mini-sequence?
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impossibility to control vs. impossibility of control Tue Feb 13, 2007 10:53 am  impossibility to control vs. impossibility of control
 

Hi

Is there any difference in saying impossibility to control and impossibility of control?

For some vague reasons I thought that in this case the noun is strongly needed, but have met impossibility to control (in a technical text Smile) and now am being in doubts Smile about the difference (if any).
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impossibility to control vs. impossibility of control Tue Feb 13, 2007 10:59 am  impossibility to control vs. impossibility of control
 

Morning Tamara,

Quite frankly I don't like either. Impossibilty of control is to me a dog's dinner of an expression. I would stick to 'impossible to control' or more long-winded 'impossibility of controlling' The same construction ie 'impossible to control' after all occurs in your famous mantra.

A
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impossibility to control vs. impossibility of control Tue Feb 13, 2007 11:22 am  impossibility to control vs. impossibility of control
 

Morning Alan,

Thanks.
'impossible to control', OK.
(I'm afraid, '... of controlling' is impossible Smile in my context.)

I meant phrases like:
'… used to prove the difficulty or impossibility of control'
'the concept means the fundamental impossibility of control'
'possibility or impossibility of control'
'a way of dealing with this impossibility of control'
and the like.

ps
Quote:
occurs in your famous mantra
Yess! Smile
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impossibility to control vs. impossibility of control Tue Feb 13, 2007 11:54 am  impossibility to control vs. impossibility of control
 

So let's develop that point to make it sound (at least to me) better and say: the impossibility of the idea of/the concept of control.

Is that all right or am I off beam?

A
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impossibility to control vs. impossibility of control Tue Feb 13, 2007 13:18 pm  impossibility to control vs. impossibility of control
 

Tamara, both combinations are possible. In order to tell you whether they've been used appropriately or correctly, you would need to post complete sentences for evaluation. I agree that "impossibility of control" would probably be a more likely format, though.

I'm sure you've googled the two phrases. Why not post full sentences for comment? It's tough to give you detailed feedback without detailed input -- i.e. the full sentence structure and context.

Part of the difficulty of your question is the simple fact that we tend to use the adjective impossible much more often than the noun impossibility. So, out of context, the phrase 'impossibility to control' may tend to sound unusual for that reason alone.

As to the format, compare a similar structure: "inability to control". Even out of context, that phrase doesn't sound unusual to me in the least -- but "inability of control" does. Laughing

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impossibility to control vs. impossibility of control Wed Feb 14, 2007 11:53 am  impossibility to control vs. impossibility of control
 

Hi Amy and Alan,

Quote:
you would need to post complete sentences for evaluation

That was not actually a whole sentence and not yet an English one. Smile

I have a (very technical) paper to make some basic translation of it in English, for techies, as well. Smile
It contains tables one of which is actually a long list of possible (known) failures of... something Smile
(with failures/hazard rates and all of that).

One column is a failure 'description' (characteristics, symptoms, effect on other systems…)
In technical world one of the probable failure of the device is impossibility of/to control it (change settings, set or switch other modes, enter data, etc)
In Russian both (of and to) are equally possible for the case (but I’d personally go for of, even though I understand that it sounds a bit as a techie 'jargon').
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impossibility to control vs. impossibility of control Wed Feb 14, 2007 13:29 pm  impossibility to control vs. impossibility of control
 

Hi Tamara

As a "non-techie"Wink, I'd probably use the adjective instead of the noun. "Impossible to control" might be my non-techie choice.
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impossibility to control vs. impossibility of control Wed Feb 14, 2007 13:34 pm  impossibility to control vs. impossibility of control
 

OK. Your vote has been counted. Smile

Thanks, Amy, indeed.
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impossibility to control vs. impossibility of control Wed Feb 14, 2007 14:12 pm  impossibility to control vs. impossibility of control
 

Hi Tamara

Just an added note:

One of the things I noticed about my German students was their tendency to use the noun 'possiblity' in sentences that would typically contain the adjective 'possible' in English. This was generally caused by an overly direct translation from German into English.
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Idiom 'go off the deep end' | meaning of mini-sequence?
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